With so much public fretting about people not watching as much football on TV, there has been less public fretting about people not attending games. But, in some cities, people are not attending games.
In Santa Clara, people did not attend the Cardinals-49ers game. And for good reason. The home team has stunk ever since firing Jim Harbaugh, and the current starting quarterback is C.J. Beathard. The Cardinals currently have Drew Stanton under center, meaning that few members of the Bird Gang will be flocking to wherever Arizona plays.
Even with the understanding that Levi’s Stadium would not be bursting at the button fly on Sunday, the image tweeted by Kent Somers of the crowd prior to kickoff was stunning. The image taken at the coin toss shows a crowd so small that it would almost be possible to count them.
The official NFL.com Gamebook lists the “paid attendance” as 70,133. But the number of tickets sold and the number of tickets used are two very different things. There’s no was 70,133 people spun the turnstiles on Sunday.
On one hand, it doesn’t matter, because the tickets were purchased. On the other hand, having people not show up means that there are far fewer people to buy the overpriced food, drinks, and merchandise, which cuts deeply in to the profit margin.
Eventually, the profit margin will take an even bigger hit, because the people who are buying tickets and not coming to games eventually will realize that, if they’re not going to come to the games, they should simply not buy tickets.